"Best" evidence for evolution.

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To address your last question first: There's too much in the higher taxonomic groups that doesn't fit the characteristics of birds while the bird group share just about everything in common. The only real differences among them do seem to be the claw feet versus the paddle feet.

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You are literally insane. The specialised adaptions of beaks alone are significant differences. And you obviously haven’t looked at the specialisations of owls or woodpeckers either. But what can I expect of someone who can’t even see that swans have long necks and short legs?

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Swans don't really have short legs, and actually their necks aren't even as long as I at least ... expected anyway. they seem longer than they are because of the way they are folded back. I'll try to find pictures to post.

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This is just nonsense. Swan’s necks are not folded back so the length is visible, and their legs are proportionately nowhere near the length of a heron’s or a flamingo’s let alone a stilt’s.ABE: seem Philip Schwarz’s images on this page compare the leg and neck lengths of the trumpeter swans and the sandhill cranes.Swan: Crane: Proportionately the swan’s neck is no shorter but the legs are much shorter. It’s so obvious I can’t think why you’d deny it.

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Birds of prey look like they have shorter necks than they do because of the way their wings fold up near their heads when at rest. They may still be shorter than their legs but I'll have to look again.

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I would be very surprised if you found any relationship between length of leg and length of neck. Vultures do have long necks, but their legs aren’t especially long.

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Probably the best way to assess this is to find skeletons of each bird. the skeleton of penguins was a real eye opener to me because it's a true bird body that is revealed that way, that is not evident under their feather padding.

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Good luck, but it won’t help you.Edited by PaulK, : No reason given.

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So I looked up the Linnaean taxonomy for birds and they are in the Class Aves. That's the Bird Kind as I see it. What I call Species, but the taxonomic system only uses that term for very specific species of birds, such as Robin.

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What a surprise - the Linnaean system uses species in the same way as everyone else,

We get it faith, it's just wrong misguided and dishonest. It's microevolution. Classic. So ... is it something new, never seen before?Species don't have to be radically different from parent species. Cryptic species confirm this. Yet they are different enough from parent/other daughter species to prevent interbreeding. ... isn't it something new, never seen before? Why would I want to pretend that a pile of misinformed wrong and misguided garbage was worth considering? Why do they look alike Faith? Why does species A look like species B? Isn't that like a dog evolving into a cat? I'm asking you simple questions to help you think how and where you are wrong, testing your concepts against reality. Do you know why it acts up?Enjoy

Thank you. Can we expect similar for all other cases where you misuse "species"?Such as when a new species evolves?Enjoy

Neither you nor I think that. Nor do I think they must be the same species as you first absurdly suggested.You call it convergent evolution, the idea being that they evolved separately. Which is pretty much what I''d say too. So there really isn't much of an issue here. But just calling it "convergent evolution" doesn't explain why "species A looks like species B" anyway, it just says it happens. I don't have an explanation either except that the same function can show up in different species, which doesn't explain it either, just says it happens, same as you say it happens. It's a wonderful mystery really.In fact there are a lot of wonderful mysteries to ponder in either theory. The strikingly specific kinds of animals that I'm imputing to the same genome is a great mystery. I don't think they were separately created which would easily solve the problem, I do think they "evolved" from the original, say, bird, or cat or dog genome, but they are such specifically designed creatures with such specifically different adaptations it's truly wonderful. I have to try to understand how the penguin came out of the bird genome, or the ostrich. The penguin with its peculiarly specific bodily structure and behaviors, the ostrich with its peculiarly specific bodily structure and behaviors, each perfectly adapted to its environment.In my scenaio they evolved, just as they did in your scenario, but their specificity is too wonderful for that explanation. No I don't think they were separately created, I do think they evolved from the original Bird Kind, but it's hard to see how the random methods of evolution could have brought that about. And of course I mean microevolution, and of course so do you.Same wonderful mystery with dogs. As I concluded from the Linnaean taxonomy, the Dog Kind includes wolves and foxes and coyotes and dingos and perhaps some other odd variations. If I believe they all came from an original Dog Kind then I believe they evolved, just as you believe they evolved.I could raise the question from my point of view whether such specific variations had already arisen before the Flood and were taken into the Ark as separate species, or evolved AFTER the Flood from the two chosen. I probably won't be able to answer that for sure but my feeling is that they must have been treated as separate species so each would have been brought in twos onto the Ark.These very specific variations of birds or dogs or any other Kind or Class or Family seem very hard to explain on the basis of evolution which always suggests something piecemeal. But these creatures have an organized wholeness whose parts would have to have evolved all together it seems. I ran into this same issue when thinking aobut how apes could have evolved into humanity. So many parts of the creature work together it's hard to figure out how they could have evolved one at a time through mutations. In the case of the Kind it's hard to imagine how even though they share a genome all the different functions they need that are built into the genome still have to be inherited as a unit rather than piecemeal by population splits. The penguins all have total body feather coverage, they all nurture their eggs between their feet, they are all supremely adapted to swimming in freezing water, how did all that adaptation come together by mere evolution, whether the ToE version or the Kind version? it's hard to explain either way. Oh I know it can be explained but I mean such adaptations defy the usual explanations and need a more satisfying explanation than the usual ones.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Thanks, those are good pictures. Yes they give a different impression than I had from the picture I saw at Google Image, but still, those are creatures with long necks and long legs. Those parts aren't matched perfectly but I didn't say they were: the general statement is still true that the birds with the long necks also have the long legs and those with shorter necks also shorter legs. It isn't a crucial point, it was just something I thought seemed to be part of the bird phenomenon, and it does seem to be as a general principle. Meaning you won't find a bird with a very short neck and very long legs or vice versa. Again, not that it matters hugely but I think there is some principle of proportion going on here, that's all.If the swan had truly short legs it would waddle. It's legs are long but not as long as a flamingo or crane's. If you want to dispute this, fine, it really doesn't matter a lot. It just looks to me that in general creatures are designed to some principle of proportionality and it makes me wonder how this is determined by the genome..Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

You are aware that "species" is simply Latin? Greek? for "kind," right? If you are all very strict about sticking to the Linnaean taxonomy in your use of the word then I'm happy to comply and do my best to avoid confusion. However, when I'm talking about variations, variations of anything, cat, bird, oak, whatever, the word "species" is still going to have to be in there somewhere and I don't think merely identifying the Kind is going to solve that problem.For instance, although you want me to stick to the Linnaean use of the term "species" it is not clearly used in that sense for "ring species." Each population that has evolved from the previous population is called a "species." Even that can gtet confusing if there isn't an attempt to distinguish which species in the ring is meant. That is where the word is going to get confusing no matter which system or theory is used it seems to me. But of course I think the whole idea of speciation in which the speciated new population is considered to be macroevolution is wrong. in fact it is mere wishful thinking because it implies that this new population can evolve into more species. But it seems to me that when you get to the point of having a new species, or variation, or subspecies, that can't breed with the parent population you are very likelyh to have the genetic situation I'm always talking about: reduced genetic diversity. And that genetic condition allows LESS possibility of evolution, not more.So I think you are all kidding yourselves. Just as in Dawkins' WEASEL program you are always all thinking of openended possibilities of evolution, so the program just shows that openended evolution, just one new phenotype after another, without any recognition whatever of what is going on in the genetic substrate. If you understand that new breeds have to lose the genetic substrate for other breeds, surely you must also see that any phenotype in the wild has to lose the genetic substrate for other phenotypes. This is essential to evolution, period. And after a series of population splits developing new phenotypes you are going to have LESS genetic diversity and often so little further evolution is absolutely impossible. Calling that "macroevolution" or just "speciation" is wishfulness without even a shred of reality to it.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

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Thanks, those are good pictures. Yes they give a different impression than I had from the picture I saw at Google Image, but still, those are creatures with long necks and long legs.

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The swans certainly do not have long legs as you can clearly see.

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the general statement is still true that the birds with the long necks also have the long legs and those with shorter necks also shorter legs.

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Obviously it does not. Despite having a shorter neck, the owl in the earlier picture clearly has proportionately longer legs than the swan.

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Meaning you won't find a bird with a very short neck and very long legs or vice versa.

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The swan seems to fit the latter description quite well.

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If the swan had truly short legs it would waddle

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They do.

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It's legs are long but not as long as a flamingo or crane's.

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They are certainly not long. You can see that. Everyone can see that.If you want to dispute this, fine, it really doesn't matter a lot. It just looks to me that in general creatures are designed to some principle of proportionality and it makes me wonder how this is determined by the genome.

Fine, you want to dispute it and I'll leave it at that because it doesn't really matter.

Reality disputes it. Swans waddle. If you don’t like it, that’s your problem.

OK, even with their long short legs they waddle. Wonderful.

They waddle because they have short legs. As you can see in the pictures.

OK they have short legs.

You still have absolutely no clue what WEASEL programs are nor what they demonstrate. You still refuse to pull your head out and actually look and finally learn something!WEASEL programs have practically nothing to do with evolution. WEASEL programs are in no form nor manner based on any assumptions about genotypes, gene expression in the phenotype, genetic diversity, etc. STOP YOUR UTTERLY FALSE CLAIMS THAT THEY DO!All that WEASEL programs do is to demonstrate the effectiveness of the mechanism of cumulative selection, especially to contrast it with the woefully poor performance of single-step selection which is used by your "trial and error" non-model. That's it. It's an abstract implementation using the methods of cumulative selection in order to solve the same abstract problem that is first attempted with single-step selection. Nothing about genetics, genotypes, phenotypes. So all your repeated efforts to misrepresent it just prove that you continue to liie about everything and anything.The only connection between cumulative selection and evolution is:

1. The mechanism for cumulative selection was derived from observations of how life works.
   
2. Evolution uses cumulative selection (not single-step selection as creationists continually liie).

Cumulative selection is a methodology just as interest rate calculations are a methodology. Trying to claim that cumulative selection is invalidated because of ideas about genetic diversity would be the same shtupid liie as claiming that interest rate calculations are invalidated because of ideas about tax rates. Applications are based on methodology, but methodology is not based on all possible applications.For example, a common application of cumulative selection is in engineering in the form of genetic algorithms. You need to optimize a complex system which is very messy to try to model completely and in which the parameters you seek interact with each other in ways that are either too difficult or impossible to calculate. Then you follow a procedure inspired by how life works:

1. Represent your problem as a string of values (ie, the parameters that you want to solve for). Also prepare a test with which you can evaluate each string for how well it works. Also establish the halting condition, a test for whether when you can stop because you have arrived a solution that is satisfactory.
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2. Create an initial population of solutions. This could even just be a single string.
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3. Make a population of near copies:
   1. Make a copy.
   2. Modify each copy slightly. Eg, replace a small number of the values with a random value, modify the existing value by a random amount, exchange short segments between strings (ie, chromosomal "cross over").
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4. Evaluate the new generation of strings with your test and rate them all for how well they perform.
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5. If you have arrived at a satisfactory solution (your halting condition), then exit.
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6. Select the top performers (one or a few, depending on your implementation) and go to Step #3 to use them to make the next generation of copies.

Genetic algorithms do not depend on actual biological genetics, but rather are independent of any assumptions in biology. Basically, WEASEL and MONKEY are genetic algorithms and are also independent of any assumptions in biology.It should be interesting to note that genetic algorithms often arrive at working solutions that no engineer would have predicted. There was an experiment using a genetic algorithm to design a differential amplifier on a field-programmable gate array (FPGA--basically a chip filled with logic gates and flip-flops into which you can load a computer-generated map of how to connect those components into something useful; we used FPGAs all the time). The design they obtained worked as specified, was immensely complex (irreducibly so, since removing or changing any single component would break it), and made use of the analog electronic characteristics of the FPGA components (something that no human intelligent designer could possibly do).Elsewhere in an artificial-life experiment, TIERRA, the "organisms" were virtual computers which fed on system resources and could reproduce their programs and, basically, evolve. The human intelligent designers had determined how those organisms would work and also the shortest possible program that could still reproduce, but the system "evolved" a far shorter program that could reproduce using a technique that none of the humans had ever thought of.So pull your head out and learn something before you yet again hoist yourself on the petard of your willful ignrance.

From the Google Page'Which seems to me to demonstrate what I keep saying: it's all about the change in phenotype or surface traits, surface changes in other words. It purports to show that these changes are different from pure chance. But it really doesn't represent those processes realistically at all so it couldn't demonstrate any such thing.Are you talking about nonbiological engineering or what? I really can't tell. But if you are then the genetic substrate makes no difference to those situations. It's only relevant when we're talking about biological evolution. And despite what you claimed, that it isn't even about evolution, the Google quote says of course it is. But that is EXACTLY what I said, it has NOTHING to do with genotypes, gene expression, genetic diversity etc. Which doesn't matter in nonbiological uses of such programs but very important if you are talking about a model for how evolution works.